As I’m sure many of you figured out in the last couple days… that fancy f2.2 camera on your brand spanking new Nokia Lumia 900 seems to take some awfully disappointing photos – particularly in low-light situations. Maybe you’ve even started to wonder who this Mr. Carl Zeiss is and whether he even had anything to do with this camera.

Anyway – the good news is that most of the issues seem to be software-based, and somewhat fixable! At the very least, this little guide should help you take much better photos depending on the situation.

Because the Lumia 900 lacks a back-illuminated sensor (BSI) like other smartphones, it tries to compensate for low-light situations by pumping the ISO to all the way to 800. This causes really grainy-looking photos with blue/red scanlines all over the place. Bleh.

THE FIX:

If you’re going to take a photo in a low-light situation, tap the camera settings, scroll down to ISO, and manually change it to ISO 100 or ISO 200. Lowering the ISO, will also produce darker photos and slow down the shutter speed – potentially causing blurry photos – so you’re going to need steady hands for this. Otherwise, you can also pump up the ISO to 200/400 if you need more light/faster shutter hopefully still keeping the noise down. Try it out and find the best setting for your shot.

THE PROOF:

Auto ISO: (ISO 800)

Manual ISO: (ISO 200)

2. Taking close-up or macro shots? Switch the Focus Mode to “Macro”

THE PROBLEM:

This one is really silly, and with all the camera experience that Nokia has – I think they should’ve known better. Unlike previous Windows Phones that intelligently switched the focus mode to Macro when you tried to take a close-up shot – the Lumia 900 doesn’t. Why? I don’t know.

THE FIX:

Anyway, this one is simple: If you’re taking a close-up shot of something, tap the camera settings button, scroll down to Focus Mode, switch it to “Macro” and watch those close objects finally come into focus!

THE PROOF:

Normal Focus Mode: (tap on close object to “try” and focus)

Macro Focus Mode: (again using tap on object to focus)

3. Taking photos with bright backgrounds? Does your object always seem to be in the dark? You might want to use tap-to-focus (or spot metering)

THE PROBLEM:

I don’t think this one is necessarily the fault of the camera or software – but rather limitations of point-and-shoot cameras in general. If you’re taking a photo where the background is bright – unless your object is exactly in the center of the photo, the camera won’t know to focus on that object and adjust the exposure accordingly. As a result, your object of interest can very easily come out darker than expected. And unfortunately, most beautifully composed photos do not have the object of interest in the center (especially when using the rule-of-thirds).

THE FIX:

There are a few ways to fix this. The easiest solution is to try using the tap-to-focus feature instead of the physical camera button on the Lumia. Tap-to-focus allows you to tap on your object of interest on the screen, and the camera will refocus on that object and adjust the exposure as well – usually bringing your object into focus and making them brighter even with a bright background.

The other way you can fix this is to change the Metering Mode to Spot (default is usually Center). Spot metering will cause the exposure to be adjusted to a smaller part of the image (usually the center, or focal point), and usually brighten the object you’re trying to focus on.

THE PROOF:

Physical camera button:

Tap-to-focus with Spot Metering:

LASTLY…

After messing around a lot with the camera settings, I’ve personally been very happy with these saved settings:

Everything left on default, except…

Exposure: 1.0 (or 0.0 if you’re taking a shot outside with great lighting)

Then scroll to the top and choose “Save Settings” to keep this as your default. Give this a try and let me know how it works for you! It’s a bit on the brighter side (I like bright photos!), should work well in low-light situations (particularly indoors), and should work for macro shots and portrait shots well. If you’re taking photos outside, in bright light and sun – I would probably leave the exposure at 0 instead of 1.0.

… and more on the way! If you have any tips of your own – please sound them off in the comments and I’ll add them up here as well. Let’s prove that this phone can definitely take some awesome photos!

]]>http://mywpstory.com/2012/04/camera-tip-taking-better-photos-with-your-new-nokia-lumia-900-windows-phone/feed/49354Got an idea for a new feature? Suggest it & vote on other new features for Windows Phone 8!http://mywpstory.com/2011/10/got-an-idea-for-a-new-feature-suggest-it-vote-on-other-new-features-for-windows-phone-8/
http://mywpstory.com/2011/10/got-an-idea-for-a-new-feature-suggest-it-vote-on-other-new-features-for-windows-phone-8/#commentsWed, 12 Oct 2011 07:39:05 +0000http://mywpstory.com/?p=343

Suggest & Vote on new Windows Phone Features

Do you have the next best idea for Windows Phone 8? Then what are you waiting for!? Share it! And no, I don’t mean you should waste your energy sharing it in the middle of 1500 comments (or 200or so) on an Engadget review of Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. No, no, no. That’s a terrible idea. Even if the Windows Phone team at Microsoft actually read all the comments on every Mango review (which, to be honest, they probably do) – they still wouldn’t really know which ones are more popular, or which ones have the highest impact (blocking functionality vs. “nice-to-have” functionality).

Anyway, Microsoft has teamed up with UserVoice.com to create a feature suggestion forum for Windows Phone. Check it out here:

Since Windows Phone 7 and 7.5 Mango have already been released, popular suggested features probably won’t get in until Windows Phone 8, or WP8 or whatever the new name ends up being. Either way – I’m totally excited that Microsoft has open up discussion to the people, and I’m also totally loving their new tagline: Put People First.

Now, if you all would be so kind, please check out some of *my* most desired features (and vote if you agree!):

You can find all my other suggested features right HERE. Vote for the ones that matter to you, and don’t forget to spread the word and add more suggestions as you hear them from your friends, parents or dog. =)

]]>http://mywpstory.com/2011/10/got-an-idea-for-a-new-feature-suggest-it-vote-on-other-new-features-for-windows-phone-8/feed/2343Quick Tip: Pandora now works on Windows Phone 7 Mango!http://mywpstory.com/2011/10/quick-tip-pandora-now-works-on-windows-phone-7-mango/
http://mywpstory.com/2011/10/quick-tip-pandora-now-works-on-windows-phone-7-mango/#commentsFri, 07 Oct 2011 07:56:46 +0000http://mywpstory.com/?p=337No, Pandora hasn’t created a Windows Phone 7 app – at least not yet. And yes, every night I pray with the rest of you, hoping that they change their mind – but until then, we *finally* have a solution to Pandora on WP7!!

Avid listeners probably already know that Pandora has recently updated their website to support HTML5. This brilliant decision to transform their site to use the newest media standards has really helped out WP7 users who are just starting to explore the power of the all new Internet Explorer 9 in Mango. Since the new IE9 browser supports playing media directly from web sites, playing music directly from the Pandora website works as well!

Simply open up Internet Explorer and head to: http://pandora.com. Type in an artist, and let the music play!

If you tap the volume button on your phone, there’s an option to play/pause the current song – but unfortunately skipping tracks must be done using the buttons on the website itself.

I totally didn’t know about it until a friend tipped me off – so I might as well spread the word. Pandora. Boo yeah.

]]>http://mywpstory.com/2011/10/quick-tip-pandora-now-works-on-windows-phone-7-mango/feed/13337Quick Tip: View the iPhone/Android optimized Gmail mobile site on your Windows Phone 7!!http://mywpstory.com/2011/08/quick-tip-view-the-iphoneandroid-optimized-gmail-mobile-site-on-your-windows-phone-7/
http://mywpstory.com/2011/08/quick-tip-view-the-iphoneandroid-optimized-gmail-mobile-site-on-your-windows-phone-7/#commentsThu, 04 Aug 2011 01:53:40 +0000http://mywpstory.com/?p=323FINALLY! Man, this was a big one for me and many others I know that rely on Gmail’s mobile website to quickly check or search for super old emails and perform Gmail-specific functions such as “Mark as Unread”, “Star”, “Report Spam”, and so on.

NOTE: I’m using a WP7 device running Mango and with the latest IE9 mobile – so I don’t know if this will work for those without Mango. If anyone can try and let me know in the comments below, I’d really appreciate it!

And feast your eyes on a mobile Gmail site that actually looks pretty good:

Mind you, it’s not quite is powerful or sexy as the real iPhone or Android mobile sites – but it’s certainly a step up from the basic WAP site, and definitely far more usable! I would recommend bookmarking this link to quickly get to the fancy gmail site quickly (and maybe even pinning to start!)

Lastly, thank you Google for caring just a bit about us WP7 users. =) Also, if you didn’t already know – there’s a special link for iPhone/Android-style Google Reader site as well described here.

Firstly, this mini tutorial will only work if you have a Windows Phone 7 device running the latest beta of Mango. If you aren’t running Mango yet, you might want to check out this tutorial if you’re a student, or this other tutorial for non-students on how to get your WP7 updated to Mango! If you’d rather not update just yet – feel free to read on and learn about one of the cool new features coming in Mango this fall!

Anyway, I decided to make this quick tutorial because almost half the WP7 users I’ve talked to had no idea this feature even existed! And at least half of those people would have actually liked this hidden gem of a feature. BlackBerry smartphones have had this feature forever, while iDevices got in iOS 4 and Android got it in some version of 2.0. Good news for WP7 users – it’s coming in Mango.

If you don’t know what a combined inbox is – essentially it creates one “super-inbox” tile on your start screen that contains emails from all the email accounts you wish. In other words, if you have 3 different email accounts hooked up to your device (ex. Gmail, Hotmail, Work Exchange email), and you’d like to see all the latest emails together in one screen – then this tutorial will show you how to combine all those inboxes into one! Also important – if you only want to group some of your email accounts – you can do that as well as it’s totally up to you how many accounts you link.

Either way, it’s super easy to do – so here we go:

Open the inbox of any email account you have set up on your WP7 already.

Click the 3 dots to open the bottom menu. Then click on “Link Inboxes”

Choose which inbox you’d like to link together. Simply click on the inbox again to unlink it if you make a mistake.

Rename linked inbox if you wish… then hit back and enjoy your new combined email inbox!

Anddddddd that’s it! If you’d like to unlink inboxes – simply repeat the steps and choose to unlink in step 3 instead.

Regardless how you eventually end up with videos on your computer – I know that there are many of us out there that do. Personally, I love being able to watch all my TV shows and movies on my Windows Phone 7 device in the comfort of my couch, bed or simply while I’m waiting around with time to blow. As a result, I’ve done a good amount of research on how to convert optimize videos for my WP7 as fast as possible and in bulk.

The personal favourite (and personal fastest!) video converter is Freemake Video Converter. To my knowledge, Freemake is totally free (ad-free, spyware-free, etc) and constantly being updated with new features and bug fixes. I love the clean interface & available options. Best of all – if you have a graphics card that supports CUDA (list of supported cards here) your conversion times are going to be blazing fast as Freemake supports offloading of conversions to your graphics card processors – which converts much faster than your standard processor. If you want to know more, you can read up on CUDA here.

Anyway, let’s get on with this tutorial:

Open up Freemake and click the +Video button to add the video you wish to convert. Freemakes supports some 200 odd input formats including AVI, MKV containers with DivX/Xvid/MPEG4/etc and all the other common ones.

Once you’ve added all the videos you wish to convert, click the “to Android” button.

Instead of using the present options, let’s click the + button to add a new Preset.

Name it “WP7 Optimized” or anything you wish. Set the following options:
Frame Size = Size up to
Width = 800
Height = 480
Video codec = H.264
Frame rate: Original
Bitrate type: Custom, 1024 <—This controls the video quality. The higher this number, the better quality the video. Higher bitrate also means longer conversion times, and bigger file sizes. If you only have an 8GB Samsung Focus, you might want to drop this number a bit to 512 or 768 so you can fit more videos on your phone at once.
Audio settings can be left at default.
Here is a screenshot with all the options:

Click OK. Make sure the Preset is now set to the WP7 Optimized one you just created. Choose a folder, make sure you have enough space then hit Convert!

And that’s it, really. I found standard TV shows at 24 minutes take about 2-3 minutes to convert each episode. Movies take 15 minutes or so – depending on length, size, and so on. If you do the calculation – you can easily convert a whole season of How I Met Your Mother in about ~1 hour. Pretty damn fast if you ask me.

Please let me know in the comments if anyone has found a faster/better approach – but this is the fastest I’ve found up till now, and it’s served me well for the last 9-10 months with my Samsung Focus.

]]>http://mywpstory.com/2011/07/tutorial-the-best-quickest-way-to-convert-your-videos-for-windows-phone-7/feed/2258Sending text messages with only your voice: Awesome new WP7 Mango featurehttp://mywpstory.com/2011/07/sending-text-messages-with-only-your-voice-awesome-new-wp7-mango-feature/
http://mywpstory.com/2011/07/sending-text-messages-with-only-your-voice-awesome-new-wp7-mango-feature/#commentsTue, 12 Jul 2011 04:56:06 +0000http://mywpstory.com/?p=248After a full week of playing with the all new Mango beta for Windows Phone 7, there has been one standout feature that I use almost every single day: Voice/Speech Dictation. This feature is absolutely amazing for many of us that use a bluetooth headset/stereo deck while we drive to and from work/school/etc every single day.

Essentially, voice dictation allows me to listen to incoming text messages while I drive, reply to them, and even create new text messages from scratch – all of this using *only* my voice. I figured the easiest way to explain this was to create a video, so here it is:

If you’re student with a Windows Phone 7 device and you don’t have Mango yet – you need to read this tutorial now! If you’re not a student, you can still get Mango using an alternative method found here.

If you guys read the previous post, then you’ll know we have one method of installing Mango; and that is if you have an unlocked device. Fortunately, the folks at WindowsPhoneHackerhave figured out a way to get the Mango update on any Windows Phone without having a developer unlocked device. Be warned though, as doing this will void your warranty. The tool also offers a way to backup your phone, and I highly recommend doing this if you choose to go down this path.

Please note that the following tool has a disclaimer, that I will voice for as well. “Please note we are not responsible for any damage caused to your device, in trouble in get into, etc. Do it at your own risk. ”, but if you still want to then check out the details below.

Note: All download links will not be provided, please refer to the source link at the bottom for all the download links as we take no credit for them.

Requirements:

A Windows Phone running NoDo or higher.

Windows Phone 7 Support Tools. Get the x64 or x86 version, depending on what you are running.

Download the update tool from WindowsPhoneHacker. ( link at bottom)

Connect your phone to your computer.

Make sure you have enough disk space as the update tool will be downloading all the necessary files for Zune to update your phone ( leave atleast 8GB ).

Now perform the following steps

Make sure Zune is closed and extract the updating tool you’ve just downloaded to the C drive’s root directory (C:\) and run it as an administrator (right-click on Update.bat and select “Run as administrator).

Zune should launch automatically after installation. Now check for updates on your phone through Zune; the program should find the “Windows Phone 7 build 7401″ update; install it. Once it’s done, check again, and Zune should find the “Windows Phone 7 Mango build 7661″ update; install it. (The second update will give you all the current Mango features)

Once you have Mango on your phone Zune will not be able to locate your phone or access it with a USB connection. You will need to download the beta version of Zune ( link at bottom ) and install it.

If you’re a student and you have a Windows Phone 7 device – there’s absolutely no reason (aside from laziness, durr) why you shouldn’t already have a developer-unlocked device. Now you might be asking yourself – why would you want a developer-unlocked device? What does it mean? What are the benefits?

Essentially, a developer-unlocked device allows you to sideload apps on your WP7 device. Sideloading is the process of installing wp7 applications directly on your device without having to go through the standard WP7 Marketplace. Similar, to the commonly used term “jailbreaking” – except it’s meant for developers to legally test their apps on their device.

Got it? no? How about some use cases. With an unlocked device, you can:

Update your phone to the latest beta OS. If you’ve been keeping up with WP7 news, you may have heard of a wicked new software update called Mango (WP7 7.1/7.5). It’s slated for public release in fall of 2011 – but with a dev-unlocked device, you can install it right now.

And last but not least – code a WP7 app and actually test it on your device.

All developers (who are not students), pay $99 a year to purchase a developer membership with Microsoft/WP7, allowing them to developer-unlock their phones and build/test their apps. Fortunately, Microsoft loves students, and even more so developers (developers developers!). As a result, all students get a free WP7 developer account and the ability to developer-unlock their phones (with a little work). So now that you’re drolling with excitement (I hope!) and curious to know how to unlock it for free, here are the steps:

Sign up for a free DreamSpark account at: http://dreamspark.com (or simply login with your current Windows Live account)

Verify your DreamSpark account with your school. Should work for US/Canada universities for sure – no clue about rest of the world. (Update: confirmed in Germany too)

Download some WP7 app samples from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431744(v=vs.92).aspx asdfUPDATE** I’ve been notified that students may not need to submit a dummy app anymore, and their accounts are activated without Geotrust verification. So from here, you can skip to step 10 and if you can unlock your device, you’re good to go! If not, then please go ahead and try step 6-9 below.

Now the hardest part of the process (for those with no software dev experience): creating a “dummy-app.” Essentially, modify one of the sample applications a bit if you want (change a title or color), and then build/compile and package into an xap binary. Note: I created a very very simple Notepad app (10 mins tops) to submit – but I’m sure it’ll still work with a generic code sample from Microsoft.

Right before you submit, there’s a checkbox that says “Automatically submit to Marketplace when approved” – make sure you UNCHECK that box! Obviously we don’t actually want to submit our “dummy-app” to the real Marketplace.

Submit! Within 24 hours of submission you should receive an email from GeoTrust to verify your identity. They’ll ask you to fill out a form and scan/fax over a piece of government-issued ID. Once they approve, your AppHub account will be fully activated!

Wait for the Mango invitation email from Microsoft, then update to the latest beta OS and sideload to your heart’s content! :)

And that’s it. Not too hard, but definitely takes some patience. Trust me when I say the benefits are worth it. Mango is stellar, and I was just playing Pokemon Red on my WP7! def. a win if you ask me!

As promised in my hate post right before this one – there’s a lot to love about Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7. And to prove my point, I’ve come up with nothing short of 35 little things to love about Windows Phone 7! So let’s get started…

It’s boots up in < 30 seconds. (My iPhone takes about a minute, and my BlackBerry takes anywhere from 2->6mins)

I don’t need to pull out the battery once every few days (BlackBerry boys, you know what I’m talking about).

The operating system is super fast & responsive. Arguable the most responsive smartphone OS out right now.

I can launch the camera app with one button and without unlocking my phone.

I can see my friend’s Facebook updates right from their contact card (without sifting through multiple apps).

I can quickly & easily select multiple email messages to move or delete at once.

It automatically merges my Google and Facebook contacts! In other words if I have a Google contact with an email/phone/address – it will merge the data my same friend on Facebook with his birthday/significant other/Facebook updates & more. (you need to see this to appreciate it).

Microsoft has committed a ridiculous amount of money and support to making sure WP7 makes it past Hello World and into the hands of as many new customers as possible and for many years to come. This means devs feel committed to the platform, and updates will keep coming – unlike.. Palm for example. :)

Seamless integration between Xbox Live account on console and WP7 is superb (your stats transfer over when you have the same game on both!).

Upload your new photo directly to Skydrive or Facebook with one click.

Non-intrusive, non-modal notifications for SMS/Apps/Wifi/etc.

Dedicated BACK button. Wow, when I had my iPhone I didn’t think much about it – but it is actually really useful. Ex. Say you’re in an email and there’s a link to a website. If you click the link on the iPhone, you hit the home button, and then open the email app again and find your message. On WP7 – you just hit back and you’re right back into the email.

Live tiles work! Seeing the # of unread emails/messages and the current temperature without having to open the app is actually useful.

Wireless Sync for your music, videos, photos, etc. Just plug your phone in to charge for the night and the syncing happens automatically.

Expandable micro SD card slot. Yes, it’s a little finicky for some users right now – but the option for expandable/removable memory puts it above the iPhone no matter what way you look at it.

Many form factors. This is a plus for Android as well – but having many devices to choose from is always nice.

Dedicated search button. So useful when you’re in the email or contacts page and you want to quickly search something.

I can pin my best friends to my start screen and see their Facebook updates instantly!

It hides the unnecessary status icons at the top to give me larger viewing area for my application.

The virtual keyboard is a joy to type on and arguably the best default virtual keyboard on a smartphone today (I hear you, swype fans).

The ‘Unread Email’ view is so useful. I don’t understand why other smartphones don’t have this option as accessible.

It seamlessly pulls Facebook profile pictures into my address book. Gone are the days of snapping a photo of each friend for your phone.

And lastly, I love the sleek, minimal, clean METRO user interface that will undoubtedly be remembered long after, and inspire new interfaces of the future.

And there you have it! My short list of just 35 things to love about Microsoft’s new Windows Phone 7! I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface of some of the many subtle little features that people enjoy – but hopefully this list will help give outsiders a little more insight on why we love our WP7, and help insiders appreciate their new WP7 a little more. Disagree? Let me know in the comments!